With Australians on the team here at TSL, we’ve long known about that nation’s addiction to the cab sav, and it’s a delight to see the world taking notice of just how damn good it is.

Our staple is Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate, which is kinda like the old favorite we rely on when we find ourselves in a poorly-stocked liquor store, we’re presented by a baffling restaurant wine list, or we’re sick of spending far too much on overpriced, underperforming exotic wines to impress other people.

It’s your favorite shirt. The pasta sauce recipe that satisfies every time. The lover you keep returning to because no one else makes you feel so good.

And it’s only $14. Who said Australians weren’t cheap?!

Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate 2003 Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon [via Cheap Fun Wines, via The Detroit News]

With the world obsessed, if only for a day, with the world of pirates, we thought we’d turn our attention to one of the few aspects of pirate life still socially acceptable – the drinking.

Writer Wayne Curtis, as part of his broader examination of rum’s links to American history in And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, has traced and documented some of the now legendary tipples brewed by the grizzly sea-farers of the past.

And some of them are quite extraordinary indeed. Like flip, as recently described to NPR thusly:

… you’d make flip with a large pewter tankard, fill it up with some dark beer and then you’d add a sweetener to it. Then you’d put a few ounces of rum into it. And then the ritual part was to stick something into a fireplace called a loggerhead, which was a long piece of steel with a bulb on the end of it - a bulb of metal that would get heated up red hot. This would then be thrust into the tankard and it would all just bubble and boil and foam up.

How quickly would the smug look on every pirate-talking undergraduate disappear if you showed up at their parties tonight with a tankard of flip and a red-hot loggerhead?

To think that yesterday we thought we were hardcore mixing vodka and espresso…

And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails [Amazon]

Lacoste has the crocodile. Penguin has the, well, penguin. And Billionaire Boys Club has camp astronauts.

These shirts (there’s a range of three) echo the sixties with their colors and cut – nothing beats long-cut, short-sleeve shirts with a pocket – and feature the retro-futuristic astronaut helmet all over, just to get you excited about the space race all over again!

It’s kinda like what Ben Sherman would be making if the British space program ever got off the ground…

BBC Helmet Pin Stripe Short Sleeve Shirt [via Hypebeast]

Sick of renting the same old Chevy Aveo on every out-of-town business trip? You need to upgrade to something, like, say, a 190hp Lotus Elise.

Just to tempt you, rental fleets across the US are adding the Lotus Elise in limited locations.

There really isn’t much else to the story than that. The car rental business doesn’t get very exciting…

2007 Lotus Elise For Rent [via Jalopnik]

Not since prehistoric times have we been so perplexed about creating fire.

Whether one uses a Zippo, a box of matches or even one of those over-the-top, blue-flamed $100 cigar lighters, lighting your cigarette or cigar almost says more about you than the smoking does.

We’ve always been big fans of the matchbook. Whether because of its slim profile or its place in history as the choice of speakeasy-going guys and femme fatales in oh-so-many golden era films, there’s just a certain romance tied up in carrying one around (and the fun of watching the unfamiliar struggle to spark a flame…).

That’s why we’re so impressed by this leather matchbook cover from Jack Spade. Although the name of the sleazy motel you picked up the matches from will be obscured, the hand-tanned leather and “FIRE” embossing are as hard to resist as the $10 price tag.

Jack Spade leather matchbook cover [via Luxist]

So you live in luxury while your dog sleeps each night on a filthy old blanket in a basket outside?

Time for the guilt to stop! Your dog deserves to live better than the homeless. Are we right?

That’s surely why the furniture world has brought us this luxury dog bed. Apparently inspired by classic modernists such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, its sleek lines, stainless steel details and durable and stain resistant faux-leather cover is sure to impress. Because dogs are really hard to impress.

(Maybe it’s just because the photo features a particularly evil-looking dog, but we’re reminded a lot of the villian chair when we look at this.)

Postmodern Pets [via Neat-O-Rama]

Caffeine and alcohol are no strangers (just think of all the painful young types slowing down bar lines the world over as they depth-charge Jägermeister into highballs of Red Bull…), but bringing together espresso coffee and vodka is certainly new to us.

The team at Single Serve Espresso (don’t let anyone ever tell you that they’re always in a rush) have experimented around by taking some of their favorite grounds (well, concentrates) to the cocktail bar for a (long?) night of java-infused martinis, and the like.

Quick Espresso Martini
1 1/2 Ounces of Stomping Grounds Espresso Concentrate
1 1/2 Ounces Vodka
Top off with a floating espresso bean

Sleep is for the dead. When it gets to 4.30am and you’re hitting a wall in your strict partying regime, a round of these should do the trick. It’s like Gatorade for alcoholic caffeine addicts.

Review: Stomping Grounds Espresso Concentrates [Single Serve Espresso]

This floating bed is too cool for words (which is handy, because we don’t speak Italian).

Actually supported by a beam running from the center of the bed’s base to the wall, the Fluttua comes from Italian design firm Lago.

The catalog (or cataloghi) is entirely in Italian, so we couldn’t figure out anything about price or availability. Our guess is expensive and rare…

Lago [via Moco Loco]

We’ve sipped some weird drinks here at TSL. Pink whisky, blue tequila, diamond-filtered vodka and our fair share of absinthe.

But we’re still excited by every exotic alcohol announcement, and this week it’s pomegranate wine from Galilee.

And not just because of our fascination for new and interesting ways to get soused – but for the unique health benefits apparently on offer:

In addition to exceptional clarity, rich color and an unusual and appealing flavor, the wine also has a hidden bonus in the wealth of vitamins and healing properties found in the pomegranate fruit, including – as recently discovered – not only anti-oxidants but even an ability to cause carcinogenic cells to self-destruct.

We don’t care how it tastes. The story behind this wine is just too good.

Rimon Winery [via Luxist]

This bedside table, which doubles as a club and shield, falls under one simple category – it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it…

As designer James McAdam explains,

It is reported that 50% of people in London are worried about security and sleep with some form of self-defence to hand, for use against intruders.

You know it makes sense.

James McAdam [via Neat-o-Rama]